Discarding medical waste contaminated with blood, urine and/or other bodily fluids, known as "Red Bag" waste, is extremely expensive due to special handling requirements. Two devices which currently are used to treat such wastes include saturated steam disinfection and are manufactured by ABB Sanitek and GTH Roland, KG. The ABB Sanitek machine combines steam and heat treatment, but complete disinfection is suspect due to limited contact time. Likewise, the machine produced by GTH Roland, KG uses only steam and is not completely effective in disinfecting and sterilizing Red Bag wastes.
The ABB Sanitek and GTH Roland saturated steam disinfection processes entail charging Red Bag waste into a lock chamber where it is moistened by either steam or water vapor, while, or just before being ground up. The ground waste is then passed into a chamber where additional steam is added. In the GTH Roland system, steam is used to maintain the waste at an elevated temperature for a specified time to achieve disinfection. The ABB Sanitek system employs microwave generators to maintain the temperature level, and achieve disinfection. In both processes the waste is held at a specified temperature for a given time and then passed out of the chamber to be disposed of as regular waste. However, due to the limited contact time, and reduced temperature and pressure, sufficient sterility is not achieved by these methods.
Chemical sterilization of such Red Bag wastes is not always possible. The reactions between chemical sterilants and the waste products, such as blood catalase, lack of penetration of the waste materials by the chemical sterilant, and the handling problems associated with such chemical sterilants all present difficulties.
Hospitals have long been waiting for alternative methods for treating and disposing of Red Bag wastes which achieve effective sterility levels and which do not present handling difficulties.